Add to List - #36 (Italy Edition)
Isola d'Elba and what we can learn from Love Is Blind
How many times do people give you a recommendation and you say ‘Oh, really? Cool. I’ll add it to the list!’ and then you go away and do not add it to any list anywhere?
Well, I present you with Add to List: the Sunday newsletter containing small things that brought joy, evoked an emotional reaction or became some short-lived stability for me in the past 7 days.
Obsession
Morning Sea swims on Isola d’Elba.
We stayed in a small town on Isla d’Elba last week where each morning Mum, Dad and I wandered a six-minute jaunt to a small cove to plunge away the wine from the night before. There’s something about heading to a beach first thing in the morning and getting in the sea before the masses descend which makes you feel alive before you’re even fully awake.
The water had a crisp appearance but a silky texture on your limbs. The light dappled through concertina reflections while the ocean’s gentle waves swashed the shore, their noises beckoning us to join them. Glorious, restorative, very demure, very mindful.
Confession
I watched Love Is Blind UK and enjoyed it.
I know there are a whole host of problems with reality TV. Often, what we see is not reality but a producer’s ethically ambiguous narrative of poor hopefuls lives in quest for either true love, true reflection of themselves or a sheer desperation to be seen.
What I do believe is: the first season of any reality show is the best. Viewers are invested from a place of intrigue not a place of expectation for the production ‘plot-twist’ or ‘curveball’ about to be thrown in. The producers work reactively around live drama to build the character arcs, the villains (in this case, the very horrendous Sam) and the stars are semi-naive to the potential outcome.
What I find most interesting about Love Is Blind is that whilst from the outside it seems totally crazy to get engaged to someone you’ve never met, you know in the bubble of ‘the experiment’ (a term potentially used to reinforce the participants opt-in attitude and negate any ethical grey areas) it would become emotionally all-consuming. I think there would be something freeing in chatting through a wall for the first initial phase of dating. As an active over-sharer, I don’t find being open difficult but I would be interested to see how it might change my behaviour in courtship. (Plus, I am extremely audio-aroused so the idea of determining if I fancy someone purely based on their dulcet tones is appealing.)
I don’t think I could ever marry someone I had never seen before in real life. I believe attraction is an energy and this energy has to be experienced in the flesh. However, the show is a lesson in how turning up whole-heartedly in the early stages of dating and selecting one person to ‘test run’ romance with may have its benefits. I believe doing the big milestones like holidays and introduction to friends and families is more telling than any well-organised Hinge date. Everything in life is informative.
In our modern society, we are consumed by our potential options. Our phones are the way we choose to connect with one another, but they leave us more disconnected than ever. We select people based on their credentials and their filtered pictures. We can date multiple people and build a preconceived idea of someone before even meeting them due to the affordance of social and dating technology. Nowadays, we rarely pick one person and really give it a go from the start (even the most conventionally monogamous amongst us).
I’m a big fan of going away with someone for an overnight around date three or four, or meeting someone’s friends before you commit to becoming their partner. Establishing a clear view on someone’s values from the outset is something I do very often, regularly resulting in things not going further, but then again, if the writing is on the wall, why delay the inevitability of things?
Not all the couples on the show make it and, without giving away spoilers, I think it’s clear that for most them, they’ve really given it a go. They can either walk away or work on their differences after giving it a considered, dedicated stab with the heart. With the exception of the final marriage-decision-come-ultimatum-wedding-drama of Love Is Blind, the premise is actually healthy: learn about love but doing not reviewing.
It reminds me of this from Esther Perel in which she answers the question: How can I be certain about a potential partner? The answer is you can’t. She talks of ‘certainty’ in modern day ‘human-supermarket’ dating as a romantic plague. I also read an article once where she denoted that if you wanted to understand your compatibility with someone, you should bring both sets of your friends together in a public place and see how comfortable both of you feel in that scenario and how you both respond. Again, another thing similar to Love Is Blind? Perhaps the show is more psychologically balanced than we thought?
Shook
Instagram vs. Reality
We went to one of Isola d’Elba’s famous beaches. Picking the image on the tourist map that we thought most visually appealing (and my lucky number), we set off on our adventure to the beach-less-travelled. After a 25 minute hike up and down the coast, we were greeted with the busiest beach I’ve ever been to in my life. There wasn’t a space to even put down our towels. Turns out everyone else (and their dogs) had the same idea to visit the ‘off the beaten track’ beach.
We later realised we’d chosen the beach from the island’s signature fragrance advertisement (talk about subliminal marketing power).
Life Hack: we hired a pedalo. We avoided the the crowds, managed to water-cycle our way to the clearest, most turquoise of waters and see some of the Island’s grottos nearby. I treated myself to a solo dip, not another human in sight and it was worth all the trek.
A good reminder that what we see on the internet really is the most filtered of experiences. Don’t be fooled, kids.
Book
The Salt Path by Raynor Winn
I’m continuing to keep my distance from fiction so I don’t become influenced by others work unintentionally. After devouring The Outrun earlier this year and living in a remote, natural location, I’m finding great joy in nature writing and using the written world to build further appreciation for this earth we are lucky to live on.
Previously, I would have dismissed nature writing as a genre, thinking it pertained to the tending of rare species of plants and boring descriptions of soil’s saline content. Yet, both this and The Outrun, use nature as a vessel for unexplainable, indescribable human pain and use poetic, beautiful writing to showcase the re-wiring and restoration that can be found in the natural world. The Salt Path is an inspiring, eye-opening read, written in mesmerising prose with truth, heart and hope.
Cook
Figs from my cousin’s garden.
I wanted a change of scenery this week as I felt creatively blocked when I got back from my little island getaway.
So, I switched up the location for my morning pages, taking in a new view. I sat beneath the fig tree in my cousin’s garden, and managed to find a whole new character by the end of my four pages. I also found these two saccharine sacks off the tree as a reward and popped them in our lunch time salad with avocado, tomato and rocket.
Can’t Stop Scanning
Venues for upcoming events.
See more below.
Forward Planning
Writer events.
The September back to school energy is upon me. No matter how old I get, I will always experience a flurry of motivation come the first week of September. Even in the mountains of Italy, the weather is starting to turn. The chestnuts are bearing their spikes and the leaves turn a paler shade of green. Not so romantic: the insects are also out in full force. I had a scarab beetle the size of my hand flying round the room last night. I’m smothered in insect bites.
I’m using this surge of motivation (and the nights of beetle-based sleep deprivation) to start working on a couple of events to support writers and I’ve started outreach for venues.
One, the autumn substack writer social hosted by
and I; the other, a night of championing new writing in the female health and reproductive space.More details very soon on them both.
And the beach was so busy
“I was at dog height “
Loved this one!